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ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH

General
Associated Center
Associated Faculty

Selected Research Profiles

• Flooding, hail, tornados and hurricanes. . .who can predict?
• What you can't see, can hurt you. . .
  
  Dr. Britt Holmén is interested in understanding how ultrafine particles emitted by cars, trucks, and construction equipment are transformed as they move through the atmosphere and are exposed to solar radiation and atmospheric gases and particles. Invisible to the naked eye, ultrafine particles are implicated in numerous health and environmental ills - including certain cancers, asthma and other respiratory ailments as well as global climate change. Enhanced understanding of the physical and chemical properties of vehicular emissions will have important implications for both global climate and human health, spurring the National Science Foundation to support Dr. Holméns vital research. She is also monitoring how airborne particulates, often containing suspected cancer-causing agents such as toxic pesticides and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), are transported and transformed in the environment. She and her associates recently documented that herbicides applied to agricultural fields become airborne as fine particulate matter when the fields are cultivated; the subsequent environmental fate of these herbicides in downwind ecosystems will be the focus of additional research.
  
  
• On the trail of antibiotics in the environment